Edge used to be a posh magazine with a more serious, less enthusiastic attitude than the rest, back when video game mags were all about raving reviews from people in their late teens or very slightly older. An emphasis on somewhat hoity toity language, glossy covers, quality print paper, game theory pieces and extensive interviews and previews, while keeping reviews short, to-the-point and graphically unassuming, was their shtick. They also flaunted their use of the full score scale, using 5 as an “average” score and 10 as the score for a revolutionary game.
Thing is, Edge got the ires of the gaming community relatively early for awarding Doom (yes, that Doom) a 7 out of 10. Subsequent slip-ups like being extremely hyped for Rise of the Robots (a game that was as sensational in still images as it was a disaster to play), or scoring GTA3 a 6/10 (before reconsidering and changing it to an 8 telling there had been a printing error), further cemented their reputation as posers. I still remember the reaction to Edge giving their GOTY to Game Pass.
And while the mag managed to mostly maintain its promises for a long time, with the almost-complete death of print mags and the advent of a new generation of reviewers, they’re now just your average review outlet that’s great when it scores a game according to popular opinion, and ridiculed when it deviates from the majority.
